Ex-offenders help city officials to understand transitioning to life on the outside

Former prisoners offer advice to new leader of Philly effort to help ex-inmates

On a recent December morning, Ceciley Bradford-Jones takes a seat in a circle of foldout chairs filled with people who are experts when it comes to prison; they’ve lived behind bars. Bradford-Jones, the new executive director of RISE, the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Re-integration Services, has been on the job for a couple months.